Using string operations

String operations are very common when working with Python and text data. Therefore, this section will review how to initialize a string, string indexing/slicing, and some common string methods.

Note

We will not review string regular expressions, as this is a large topic with significant depth. Check out Mastering Python Regular Expressions by Victor Romero and Felix L. Luis for more instructions on this topic.

Initializing a string

Python allows for string initialization (creation) in several ways. Two ways include single quotes ('') and double quotes (""):

# Single quotes
s = 'Hello, World!'
print(s)  # prints: Hello, World!
# Double quotes
s = "Hello, World!"
print(s)  # prints: Hello, World!

Single and double quotes are basically interchangeable. The only difference comes into play when you have a quote mark (single or double) inside a string. For example, one common scenario is...